


cute without the e

by anons (orphan_account)



Category: NCT (Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: (Please please read warnings in A/N!!!!!!), Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26681770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/anons
Summary: Hendery just wants to pass the semester. Mark just wants to borrow some sugar. There’s blood and coffee somewhere in there.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Wong Kun Hang | Hendery
Comments: 13
Kudos: 72





	cute without the e

**Author's Note:**

> TW!!!!!! satanism and blood. please take these tags seriously and exit now if you're uncomfortable bec it all shows in the beginning scene. let me know if i need to tag more ! fic title’s from a song by taking back sunday
> 
> happy birthday hendery <3

Hendery is 21. He is 21 and eloquent with a flat three in English as his highest grade ever so he says, “Jesus _fuck_.”

From the threshold, Mark Lee looks like he wants to throw up. Or faint. Or walk out of the room he hasn’t quite entered yet and call campus authorities. Or maybe he wants to do all three but Hendery supposes that isn’t quite possible because of the entire fainting thing. He hopes he doesn’t. So as kindly and as normally as he can with bleeding palms and a scarlet fucking pentagram on the floor, he says, “I can explain.”

Mark’s eyes jump to him, and then his palms, then back to the pentagram. And because he is 21 too and apparently with the same level of eloquence as Hendery, he shrieks out:

“What the _fuck?!_ ”

“Who the hell was that?” comes Yangyang’s scratchy voice from the phone, and then there’s Renjun stealing the receiver from Yangyang to say, “Hold up, did you get caught? Hendery, I swear to God—" and then Hendery’s reaching for his blood-stained phone beside the pentagram, soaking it in blood even further, to fake static noises and to chirp out a very, very convincing _oops! Looks like the signal’s going bad! Bye guys!_

Hendery looks at Mark—still ashen-faced, still wide-eyed and gaping.

“Let me explain,” he tries again with a winning smile, “but before that, I’m gonna need you to close the door.”

Hendery places a cup of coffee in front of Mark and sits across him on the kitchen table with his own. He says, “So!”

Mark jumps, clearly still shaken up.

“Sorry,” Hendery clears his throat. “So, um, right.” He lets out an awkward laugh, and Mark blinks at him furiously. “Sorry you had to see that. I thought you were my friends so I let you in. They said they were coming and uh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Your hand,” Mark speaks for the first time in five minutes.

“Huh? Oh.” Hendery adjusts the poor-quality tourniquet slipping to show his still-open wound. “I never quite got that whole knot thing.”

“No, I mean.”

Hendery furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“Is that—was that your blood on the floor?”

Right. “Yeaaah, but it wasn’t a lot. Kinda. Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Well okay, it _was_ a lot but it didn’t hurt much, I swear,” he assures, and when Mark looks at him incredulously, he insists, “Really! It’s fine. It’s not that I didn’t expect anything going into this.”

“And what exactly,” starts Mark carefully, “is ‘this?’”

Hendery examines him. “Do you want the truth?”

“What lie can you possibly tell?”

“I can say it was for a project,” Hendery says, “or a very intense and very early Halloween photoshoot for an Instagram page I secretly run.”

Mark snorts softly. “That’s kind of weak.”

“At least you don’t have to bear the burden of hearing the truth,” Hendery laughs.

“…which is?”

“Right, well, um,” Hendery starts, foot tapping beneath the table nervously, “well first, I’m gonna need you to promise me not to mention this to anyone and I mean it. You absolutely can’t.”

Mark hesitates and by the second, Hendery’s foot tapping becomes more impatient until Mark says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Hendery blinks back his surprise.

Mark nods. “Okay,” he repeats, “I promise.”

“Right,” says Hendery, confused, not expecting it to be easy, “Well, you see, I was trying to um, to sell my soul to the devil.”

Hendery expects a frown or ghastly shock or even a _jesus FUCK, you freak get away from me!_ but Mark just blinks and asks, “Is that stuff real?”

At that, Hendery just shrugs. “You never know until you try,” he says, “but my friends told me they met some seniors at a party who have tried it though, and it worked.”

“Huh.”

“Huh,” parrots Hendery, “and what exactly does that sound mean, Mark Lee?”

Mark looks embarrassed. “Nothing. I just… why’d you do it?”

“Why else?” Hendery grins, leaning back on the chair. “It’s finals week. My class standing is absolutely pitiful. I’ve been running on caffeine for three days. Go figure.”

“You’d sell your soul to the devil for passing grades?”

“Hey, c’mon now, I’m not that cheap,” he tuts. “I’m selling it for _perfect_ marks.”

Surprisingly, Mark lets out a laugh. He picks up Hendery’s I ♡ SINGAPORE mug his sister had brought home for him three summers back and takes a sip. Hendery raises an eyebrow. “What,” he says, “Nothing to say?”

Mark places the mug back down. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Anything, really. You sure you’re okay with this stuff?”

“I’m not,” Mark admits.

“Well, that’s fine,” Hendery smiles. “Anything else? You can be honest. You can say it’s fucked up. I know you want to and I won’t be offended.”

Mark hesitates for a moment before breathing in deep and saying, “Dude, what I witnessed tonight was the single most traumatizing moment in my life and it was really, really fucked up. Please bandage your cuts properly because looking at it is really messing me up.”

Hendery pauses before bursting out laughing. “Man, how long have you been waiting to say that?”

“Too long,” Mark sighs.

“You’re too nice,” Hendery says, and then jokingly: “Bet you’re the type to hesitate calling for help when you’ve injured yourself because you don’t want to trouble anyone.”

Mark snickers. “Nah, that’s what I have Donghyuck for. He does all the yelling in our friendship.”

“Donghyuck?” Hendery blinks, remembering the many instances of the orange feline sneaking into the halls to scratch on everybody’s door and Mark calling after it. “Like, your cat?”

“Oh no, no. I meant Donghyuck the human.”

Hendery furrows his eyebrows. “Your cat can turn into a human?”

“No,” Mark laughs, “Dude, are you alright? I meant the human I named my cat after. Donghyuck. He’s my best friend.”

“Oh.” Hendery feels dumb. “Right, of course.”

Mark grins at him teasingly. “Right.”

Hendery looks at that, then down. “Well, uh, before I forget to ask: why were you on my door in the first place?”

“Oh, yeah, I knew I was forgetting something!” Mark snaps his fingers, sitting straight up. “Yeah, well about that, I wanted to borrow some sugar, actually. If that’s alright with you.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Hendery says. “It’s on that counter behind you. Beside the—yeah, beside that salt shaker. That’s it.”

Mark sits, holding the tiny jar, his coffee half-finished. “I’m a two spoons of sugar kind of guy.”

“Oh,” Hendery winces, looking at both cups of black coffee on the table. “Sorry. I got used to that for the past few days.”

Mark laughs kindly. “It’s fine,” he says, and then hesitates, “I kind of have to go now.”

“Okay,” Hendery says, standing up with him. “Let me just, um,” and then he dashes to the living room to throw his cheapass carpet on the drying pentagram which is probably a bad idea but, eh. He needed a new carpet anyway. Mark awkwardly stands at the side, watching him do everything, and Hendery’s spine straightens politely after. A corner of the pentagram pokes beneath the stupid carpet. Hendery stands in front of it to hide it. “Okay,” he chuckles awkwardly, “Nothing to see here. Go along now.”

“Good night,” Mark says when he’s on the door.

“Good night,” Hendery returns, feeling his bloodied palms itch. Mark looks at it for a few seconds before walking out and back to his own dorm and leaving Hendery alone in a pentagram-grafittied, sugar-less room.

Hendery manages to lie through his teeth despite Yangyang and Renjun’s tag-team crowing which, in his opinion, is a pretty impressive feat. On par with that flat three in English during his freshman year. Their comments, however, still manage to worry Hendery and scare him enough to do this:

“Uh,” Mark falters, lifting his head from the crook of his elbow, “What is this?”

“Coffee,” Hendery quips, volunteering himself to the empty seat beside Mark.

Mark squints at him. “Why?”

“Café had a buy 1 take 2 offer,” says Hendery, which is a big, fat, obvious lie, “and you look like you need it, anyway. So.”

“Okay,” Mark is obviously not buying it. “Thanks,” and then he looks at Hendery casually sitting beside him as though they’ve been LIT204 seat buddies for the past semester.

Hendery tries his best smile. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Mark looks away instantly. “No,” he mumbles, picking up the coffee, “Thanks for the coffee.”

He sleeps for half the class with obvious bags under his eyes hanging heavily. Hendery dedicates himself to being the best seatmate ever and diligently takes a picture of every slide their professor flashes. Mark’s maroon string bag slips off his seat and Hendery picks it up for him. When the professor dismisses them, he nudges Mark awake.

Mark looks up sleepily. “Uh?”

“Morning,” Hendery teases softly, “Class is over.”

Mark sits up, chair and bones creaking, fringe sticking up like a bird’s beak. He takes the bag Hendery hands him as they stand and picks up his unfinished coffee cup. He asks, “He didn’t discuss anything important, did he?”

“Nah,” Hendery assures, “I have pictures of the slides though, if you want that.”

Mark groans. “Thanks, man. You’re the best.”

Hendery offers him a two-fingered salute.

They walk outside together. The thing is, despite Mark’s sincere (???) sworn word, Hendery still can’t find it in himself to settle or to sweep last night’s stunt under the carpet or to leave the whole thing alone. So, of course, his natural response to that is to keep an eye on Mark until he assures himself enough that Mark’s not about to snitch. He catches Mark looking at his bandaged palms several times as they walk and his futile way of hiding it by sipping on his coffee not very casually. Halfway through the fresh-painted pillars of Nara building where every direction goes all ways, Mark notices Hendery still padding after him and asks, “Um, aren’t you going back?”

“I am,” Hendery says. “Aren’t you?”

“I still have to submit my paper in Mrs Na’s office.”

“Ah,” he says, “Well, that’s fine. I can wait for you.”

Mark frowns. “Why?”

“We live across each other.”

“That’s not a rea—”

“Mark-hyung!” comes a sunny and impressively loud voice from the field and they both look to see a lean guy barrelling towards them in concerning speed, hair like the color of washed-out blood flying in the wind. “Hey! You didn’t answer my text last night! How’d your visit go—oh!” and then the guy’s looking at Hendery with surprised eyes.

Hendery smiles just to do something. “Uh, hi.”

“Hi,” the guy says, positively golden and entertained. Entertained?

Mark grits, “Hi, Donghyuck. What do you want?”

“What, I’m not allowed to say hi?” Donghyuck the human laughs, and Hendery secretly finds it amusing how he _does_ look like that damn cat that likes scratching on his door at four a.m. To Hendery, he says, “Hi, I’m Donghyuck! Mark’s best friend!”

“Hi, Donghyuck,” Hendery smiles. “I’m Hendery.”

“Hendery,” Donghyuck repeats, “Wow, I totally don’t know that. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard your name. Very interesting, very—” and then he yelps which Hendery surmises because of the pinch that Mark bruises to his sides. “Alright, alright, fuck!”

Once Mark’s given up on his intent to bruise for the meantime, Donghyuck continues, “So, what are you doing with Mark-hyung?”

“I’m waiting for him so we can walk back to the dorm together,” Hendery says.

Donghyuck’s eyebrows shoot off to space. “Interesting. Is this a new development or—”

“I think I hear your coach calling your name,” Mark interrupts.

Donghyuck cups a hand around his ear and stretches his body forward to the fields. “I don’t know, Mark-hyung,” he says wryly when nothing comes, “but I think you need to get your ears checked.” He turns his back to Mark to fully face Hendery whose lips are lilted in amusement. “Anyway, anyone ever told you that you have a great smile?”

At that, Hendery bashfully laughs. “Aw, thanks—”

“Go back to your damn soccer practice, Donghyuck,” Mark clicks his tongue, swatting away the hands that fly forward to pinch his cheek, the coffee cup on his hand dangerously juggling. Donghyuck’s eyes fly to it, and then to the name adorning its environmental-friendly paper holder. “Oh!” he says, delighted.

“If you say anything more, I swear to God—"

“Relax, I’ll stop.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “You’re no fun.” To Hendery, he says, “I’m gonna go now because my coach is going to kill me for taking too long but it was nice meeting you.”

Hendery smiles and says, “You too.”

And then Donghyuck’s redirecting his grass-stained knees back to the field. Four steps later, he turns back to yell, “Please take care of Mark-hyung!”

Hendery laughs. “I will!”

Mark mutters out a _brat_ and turns to him with a wince, half his face swimming in afternoon light. Now, Hendery may be stupid at times but he isn’t a fool and he certainly isn’t brick wall dense. He takes their odd behaviour and Donghyuck’s telling statements and bridges it to a possibility.

“Sorry ‘bout that."

“It’s alright,” Hendery says, then gestures forward grandly. “Shall we?”

They walk ahead. Hendery feels his palms itch beneath the bandages so he raises his arms to scratch them. He catches Mark’s eyes on it again and sees the other visibly hesitate before asking, “You didn’t go through with it, did you?”

“Nah,” Hendery says, and Mark looks relieved at that. “I’ve accepted my fate.”

Mark laughs. “Shame. I feel like the devil would’ve liked you on his dinner table.”

“How flattering,” Hendery grins, looking at him. “Would _you_ have liked me on your dinner table?”

“You wish.”

“Hey, I’m nice!” Hendery says, driving his shoulders to Mark’s playfully. “I let you borrow sugar. I bought you coffee.”

“And you also won’t think twice about selling your soul for your grades,” Mark hums, “Although there’s a high possibility of you fucking up and getting your entire being sent to hell instead of just your soul. So clearly, there are cons in here that overpower the pros.”

“That’s not true,” Hendery protests. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Mark snorts softly, smiling. “Yeah, you are,” he says, sipping on his coffee, and Hendery allows himself to toy with the possibility of buying Mark another one under completely different circumstances and reasons in the near future.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m gonna need longer markdery interactions if i’m gonna write longer, more serious fics..... anyw i've been very busy with school work but i just couldn't help myself after seeing these two sunshine boys. i hope they grow closer ;;;


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